Sequences of Love by Anca Badea is a visual confession marked by sensitivity and feminine warmth. The attention of the artist in this series of works develops around the intimate nucleus of the couple, with a focus on love, manifested in gestures, atmosphere, and silence infused with meaning.
The artistic process is centred on the theme of love and its particular manifestations in contemporary daily routine, as the artist concentrates on the appearance of “snapshots” from the day-to-day life of several couples of lovers. The chromatic atmosphere is warm, discrete, appearing to invite the beholder in a secretive manner, as if through a keyhole, to discover the universe of the people who share a special connection, a connection beyond words. The mystery that Anca suggests in her painting perfectly matches the silence that does not inhibit – but rather naturally “inhabits” the existence of people that love each other. The seduction that the artist proposes is a dual one: at a visual-sensory level, by means of pictorial execution, virtuosity and chromatic refinement and at the level of the idea – the seduction taking place between man and woman. Be it a complete representation of the bodies or only one limited to details, the sensuality is discrete, the touch between man and woman is suggested more than it is explicitly shown. We do not detect any erotic or sexualized atmosphere, nor one of physical consummation of the couple’s relationship, but rather a foreplay or a moment of tenderness suffused with sensitivity and innocence.
The bodies, the gestures, the objects become mere suggestions in the game of love, as the beholder is enticed to different interpretations and configurations of scenarios, of situations. The artist approaches the subject of love in a feminine, refined atmosphere. The beholder is invited to primarily contemplate the feminine beauty in scenes of tenderness, this beauty being a key factor in the “deciphering” of the eternal mystery surrounding the love between man and woman.
In the view of Anca Badea, love – together with dreams, faith and art – offer a refuge to man before the cruelty of historical existence, granting life the state of grace specific to transcendence. For the artist, love does not consume man, but elevates him, makes him better. Through love man fulfils himself and becomes “complete” in a plenary manner.

Ada Muntean

Visual Kontakt Curator